The Exemplary Sidney and the Elizabethan Sonneteer by Lisa M. Klein (review)

Abstract

Reviews 796 Solomon sonimbly sidesteps elsewhere. Itistobehoped that readers will beableto seebeyond thefirst twochapters, andfind theidiosyncratic riches atthecoreof Solomon's book. BIRKBECK COLLEGE, LONDON ALAN STEWART The Exemplay Sidney and the Elizabethan Sonneteer. ByLISA M. KLEIN.Cranbury, NJ: University ofDelaware Press; London: Associated University Presses.I998. 3I9pp- £36. Inthe constellations ofRenaissance literary history, few stars haveshone asbrightly as thatofSirPhilipSidney. As theauthor ofone ofthedefining treatises of vernacular poetics (the Defence of Poety), oneofthemost influential sonnet sequences inEnglish (Astrophil and Stella), andoneofthe first sustained works ofprose fiction in the language (the Arcadia), Sidney stands almost uniquely across what would become themajorgenres ofimaginative andcritical expression. Moreover, as a figure of political andmartial repute, andasthe object ofa later veneration bordering onthe cultic, Sidney hadaninfluence notonly onthegenres inwhich hewrote, buton thevery ideaofliterary authorship and,inturn, ontheconstructions ofa literary history keyed tocharismatic authors. Yet,for allhisuniqueness andhisinfluence, Sidney hasnever really found his placeinthe most recent versions ofthe Renaissance pantheon. TheNewHistoricist revisionism hastended toprivilege Puttenham's Arte of Poety over Sidney's Defence in itsunderstanding oftheallegorical self-fashioning oforatorical performance inthe Elizabethan period. Andwhile itsdefining practitioners (for example, Greenblatt, Goldberg, Orgel,Montrose, Helgerson, andtheir students) havedonemuchto interrogate thecentral themes ofSidney's work, thepolitics ofcourtly poetry, the masks ofcourtiership, andthetheatrics ofboth theliterary andthesocial life, they havenotdevoted toSidney himself theenergies lavished onSpenser, Shakespeare, Marlowe, andJonson. A newbookon Sidney is therefore mostwelcome, andLisa M. Klein's771e Exempla7y Sidney and the Elizabethan Sonneteer seeks tofill the gapincurrent scholarship andcriticism byoffiering a new view ofthe writer andhisindelible legacy onEnglish letters. Klein's thesis isthat Sidney's legend helped foster the sonnet sequence asthe defining mode ofpoetic expression inRenaissance literature. Herclaim isthat poets suchas Fulke Greville, Samuel Daniel,andSpenser himself'initially drawonthe example ofSidney tojustify their ownprofession ofpoetry, todefine andauthorize themselves, [. . .]but their writings ultimately contest andvariously modify Sidney's heroic image'(p.2I). Thus,herbooknarrates a version ofliterary history more, perhaps, intunewith theinfluence studies ofHaroldBloomandtheearly John Guillory than with theNewHistoricists. Infact, Kleinseparates herself from both theNewHistoricism andtheearlier NewCriticism byclaiming, 'I listen for the dissonant voices within a text, evidence ofSidney's conflicted image orofa divided response tohim.Dissonant voicesalsoenablea text suchas thesonnet tospeak simultaneously within andagainst convention' (p.34). Pursuing this lineofapproach, this bookreadsclosely ina setoftexts byboth Sidney andhisheirs inorder todiscern thedissonance encoded inthem. Thus, the Defense ofPoety becomes a tract forProtestant poetics (thefashioning ofa 'right reader') butalsoanexample ofthepoet'sown'triumph ofwit'. Astrophil and Stella engages withPetrarch's literary and political legacies, whileat thesametime deploying a range ofRenaissance iconic figurations todefine thepublic poetinhis role(forexample, representing Astrophil as KingDavid).Andin theworkof MLR,96.3,200 I 797 Greville, Daniel, andSpenser, Kleinfinds the various ways inwhich these poets use theformal andthesocialexemplarity ofSidney almost against itself; inthecaseof Spenser inparticular, theAmoretti 'reforms thetraditions ofcourtly lovepoetry to articulate Protestant idealsofmarried love,a radicaldeparture from Sidney's practice thatparadoxically confirms theprior poet'sidealsfortheright useof POetrY'(PV I73) Thisbookhas muchto offier in thewayofclosereadings and occasional engagements with thelegacy ofSidney criticism. Compared, however, tothebest andmostcreative Sidney criticism ofthepasttwodecades(RonaldL. Levao's brilliant chapter ontheDefence inhisRenaissance Minds andtheir Fictions (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, I985),orRoland Greene's deft readings ofthe sonnet sequence inhisPost Petrarchism (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, I99I))the bookis onlyworkmanlike. And compared, too,to thecreative, theoretically informed and culturally wide-ranging workon the conceptof Renaissance exemplarity, from John Lyon's Exemplum (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, I989)toTimothy Hampton's Wrztingfrom Histo7y (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, I99I),this bookis onlyderivative. It bears, still, theimpress ofitsorigins ina dissertation finished a decade ago.Ifits virtues lieinits lackofflashiness, its sober close readings, anditsdiligent pursuit ofitsstated thesis, itsshortcomings lieinthefact that ithas chosenas itssubject matter a figure ofliterary flash, whosework, and more particularly whose contexts, havebeenstudied bysome ofthemost dazzling critics . 0tourgeneratlon. STANFORD UNIVERSITY SETH LERER Marlowe, Histoy, and Sexuality: J%ew Crztical Essays onChristopher Marlowe. Ed.byPAUL WHITFIELD WHITE. NewYork: AMSPress.I998. XXi + 257PP. S59.50. Marlowe'sCounterfeitProfession. Ovid,Spenser,Counter-Xationhood. BYPATRICKCHENEY. Toronto, Buialo, NY, and London:University ofToronto Press. I998. xii+ 402pp. $60 oo;£39 Between Aations. Shakespeare, Spenser, Marvell, andthe Question of Britain. BYDAVID J. BAKER. Stanford,CA:StanfordUniversityPress. I997. Xii+2XIpp. $39.50;£3° '[TheCorpus portrait] shows a striking young man:twenty-one years old,self-assured, a bit flashy [. . .] arms folded [. . .]. Thestance [. . .] requires noprops [. . . and]show[s] offthe...